I had just picked up an individual from the bar. He was teetering. Although I was parked next to him, I needed to honk to wake him up. He awokened rather sharply, excited to see his Uber arrive. We started talking. He began talking about his younger years and when him and his wife used to travel alot and go on adventures. He didn’t tell me about his night at the bar. But yet he trusted me to hear his stories. He was still in story-mode from whatever encounter he had in the bar. His stories would break up here and there and it would shift to other topics but I was really intrigued when he started talking about his trip to Mumbai, India. It was difficult to tell who this person really was but I started to question whether this man was just a local bar fly when he would bring up trip after trip and story after story. This man had some stories let me tell you. He went on and on about this cruise and how they went deep sea diving in the Pacific somewhere in Indonesia and the relaxing trip to Bali and the trek through Mount Kilimanjaro. And I just couldn’t believe this gentleman had so many dreams and was so good at telling stories when he was so visibly drunk. And this man was drunk. I could see his head from the rearview mirror slumping over every couple of minutes as if he was teetering on the edge of a very deep cliff to sleep city. But he managed to continue on. He straightened up his neck and sat up straight and he brought himself back to consciousness when he said, “I found gold. I hid it. LOTS OF IT.” Woah, really? This dude had gold stored somewhere. I was dead silent. “Yep, yep. Gold.” Ok, its always difficult to tell if someone’s telling the truth when one eyes closed and the other eye looks as if its in a battle for life and death as if there is a tiny troll between the two eyelids using the last of his strength to keep the eye lids from closing in around that last standing eyeball. And the same man who in all consciousness seems to have lips that are rejecting his words but subconsciously manages to get them out. This man was barely coherent but he was determined enough to tear out this memory from the past. I asked him nervously, “where do you think this gold is at, can you find it again? where would we have to travel?” He replied, “I hid it in a cave bruh. I buried it behind an entrance. We canget it. You need money bro??” I replied almost immediately, “Yes, yes I do actually. Lets go, where is this cave??” The conversation was getting tense, I turned off the music and closed the windows. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of this man and lure his secrets out but it sounded like he didn’t need much gold and would be willing to share some of the catch. “Pshhh hey misstur, cpam youm get me home i’m veruslepy” Just like that I saw his head drop as if he had been holding up the world under that scrawny little neck. And I knew at that point that he had drifted off into a deep sleep. I had lost the gold. We arrived at our location. I woke him up, but there was no gold in his eyes, only sleep. “Here sir take this dollar as you end this beautiful night. Wonderfl ride mistur. I’m due for a pillow see ya latur sir.” And that was that. He left me there that night alone in my car. No gold. No hope. But I still think back on that trip. If only I had splashed some water in his face. Or if only I had refused to take him home until we planned our trip to Mumbai. Blast it all! I hope that gold is safe. Until next time...